


Ever After

by Missy



Category: Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery
Genre: Afterlife, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, Ghost Matchmaking, Ghosts, Minor Violence, Possession, Pre-Story Murder, Romance, Though this falls a bit on the treaty side of a trick, Thwarted Romance, Tragic Romance, Trick or Treat: Trick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-26
Updated: 2018-09-26
Packaged: 2019-07-17 18:43:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16101536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/pseuds/Missy
Summary: Glenrick Hall is the oldest building on the outskirts of Avonlea, and Anne thinks it's just the perfect place to get a bit of peace and quiet to write - until she loses track of the hours and wakens to a story left behind in her tablet is not her own.  Can Diana help her unravel the clues?  What do the ghosts want?  And what will they do when they get it?





	Ever After

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rina (rinadoll)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rinadoll/gifts).



It was a frightfully romantic place, Anne thought to herself as she settled down at the thick oaken table in the main room of Glenrick Hall. She ignored the dust and spread out the writing book before her, a small lump of charcoal to write with pressed against the page.

Anne felt herself lucky to have found the place sturdy and remote enough for her to work in private without disturbing anyone at home with her low candle burning. No one had been here for hundreds of years, though every single one of her school chums knew something about the place; they had rumors but very few facts to be whispered of. The Glenrick family had died off years ago, in the late 1700s, and the sturdy castle was their last attempt at making Canada more like their lost Scotland homestead. She couldn’t complain about their taste in construction – with a fire roaring, the anteroom - furnished only with the table and a high chair - where she sat was quite cozy. Anne stared at the page, trying to conjure words. They bled outwards, ceasing to resemble anything so much as flashing dots.

When she returned to herself, it was freezing cold, the fire having gone out. It felt like something was pressed against the back of her neck, and she shuddered, swatting at her bare skin, until it fled. She struck a new match and lit the lantern and folded up the empty book, heading back through the front door.

With every step she took, she was haunted by the scent of apples and cinnamon, as if someone had been baking a pie.

 

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The school week passed, but with every single day that trickled by she slept poorly, the clear crisp days and orange-red foliage crisp-cracking under her feet unnoticed, and her students – preoccupied with Halloween’s arrival – took terrible advantage of her distraction. She could smell fire and peat moss in the air, yet she couldn’t revel in it as she always used to; she drank mellow sweet cider but did not savor it. Anne felt like a lost child. Something was calling her, demanding she come to the Hall – that she heed the story that was yet unwritten.

Dear Diana, naturally, noticed.

“Gilbert tells me you haven’t been paying attention to your lessons, and you’ve been so tired,” she fretted. “What’s been wrong?”

“Oh Diana, I cannot lie to you, any more than I could lie to God,” Anne said, and Diana reacted to her typically grand blandishments with enormous nutmeg-colored eyes. And so she told her the whole terrible story.

And dear Diana’s reaction to her unsensible story was a most sensible reaction.

“Glenrick Hall has a library – I’ve heard the children talk about it. That’s where we need to go. To the library!” she said, grabbing Anne by the wrist and marching them into the darkness of the unbeaten forest path.

 

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Anne thought to herself that it was an awful idea to return to the Hall, but she was terribly intrigued. Why had she lost track of time? Why the smell of cinnamon and apples in the air? Why the feeling of pressure upon the back of her neck? She creeped up with a little wax candle to the library abovestairs with Diana at her side, and they ransacked the books until they found a thick red leather-bound volume marked ‘Glenrick Family History’ on the spine in golden letters.

Only the last dozen pages, written in an ancient, shaky hand, were a revelation. 

_”Heed my words, child. This is a tale that’s not for the faint of heart...”_ Anne read, and she delighted in the over the shiver Diana gave. In spite of herself she did love a touch of drama now and again, even running on very little sleep. _”This is the testament of Mary Katherine Glenrick, the last of her clan.”_ Anne trailed off. She felt a breeze blow through the room, guttering the candle and prickling the hair on the back of her neck. Diana lunged toward Anne, grabbing her shaking hand. But Anne’s eyes were focused on the misty cloud drifting in her direction, subsuming her body in a blueish white light.

Everything else was whiteness and oblivion.

 

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It was not Anne’s voice coming from her lips. “Will you help me write the story, child?”

Diana was trembling. But she nodded. 

“Then you will watch as I lift the pencil.” Mary Katherine –for there could be no other person inhabiting Anne’s body at the moment – spoke. 

The story poured over Diana. “I was in love with my maid. I knew that from the time I was eighteen and she entered her household. I learned how to bake apple pie for her, and in the evenings – when my father slept, we would be together. But soon he did not sleep deeply enough, and when he woke he sent my love into the cold to die. And so did I leave behind her, and freeze in the grounds nearby.”

“That can’t be true. Mary Katherine died sick!” For every child in Avonlea knew that story too, that Mary Katharine, the last Glenrick, had died of fever.

“My father fabricated a husband. Why not a fever? We had enough of those in my time.”

Her words filled the page eagerly, over-spilling the margins, finishing the story. Until, finally, they stopped. “When you return to your homes, tell my story. Tell them that love didn’t die here…” Again, Anne was looking beyond Diana’s shoulder. A ball of blue light spread itself out, turning cloudy then well-defined, turning into a lovely woman’s form. “…But was reborn.”

Diana nodded, watching as the pale white mist emerged from Anne’s body, steaming from her like cigarette smoke. Her eyes flittered back open as Mary Katherine took her lover’s hand and walked off together, right through the wall of the keep.

Diana flung herself at Anne, and Anne squeezed her back. “All’s well,” she said calmly. “I’m myself once again – though I wish I’d gotten to see Mary Katherine in spirit.”

“Be happy that you didn’t. Oh Anne, I was so frightened…”

Anne squeezed Diana tighter, and then rubbed her upper arms. “All’s well,” she said.

“All’s well,” Diana agreed, and kissed Anne on the lips. The kiss was like a dam releasing; when it gave, so did Anne’s fears and her exhaustion. She was alive, alive, and would be so for as long as she could be.

 

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Hand in hand, they walked up the path through the misty wood, until they found the place where the road forked, and the Glenrick cemetery. The two girls picked late-autumn black-eyed susans and dropped them on Mary Katherine’s grave before walking away.

Anne did notice, as Diana squeezed her hand, the date on the tombstone. Perhaps that was why she had called, siren sweet, to the red-headed fireband.

Mary Katherine had died a hundred years to the day before Anne had been born.


End file.
